Love by the Decade

Recalling her own motherhood journey, Heidi Hess Saxton affirms moms' need for prayer, support, and understanding in all stages of parenting.

Gracious Father, grant our boys
Wisdom to first seek only you,
Work that makes them strong and true,
Women of virtue to be their spouses, and a
Wealth of children to fill their houses. Amen.
(Rose Sweet, The Ave Prayer Book for Catholic Mothers)

When I started putting together this little gem of a prayer book, during the height of the pandemic, I asked sixty of my favorite Catholic moms to share their favorite prayers and prayer stories. And I was glad to receive so many prayers, like these, that fit the far end of the parenting spectrum. These days, those prayers really hit home for me.

Twenty years ago, fresh to the trenches of motherhood, I started writing for CatholicMom.com. My husband and I had become foster parents to three siblings under the age of five, and still had a kind of foolish naiveite—rushing in, as the saying goes “where angels fear to tread.” To be honest, there wasn’t a lot of wisdom pouring from my pen in those days. Most days involved the kind of white-knuckling usually reserved for teaching teenagers to drive a stick shift. In winter, on black ice. Downhill. Both ways. Getting a shower and more than four consecutive hours of sleep was a minor miracle.

Back then I wrote just to reassure myself that I wasn’t the only crazy Mama on the block.

Fast-forward ten years—about five years after Christopher and Sarah’s adoption was finalized—and I stopped writing entirely. The scars of their early childhood had surfaced in unfathomable and horrible ways, and we found ourselves once more white-knuckling, just to hold the family together. Together, we discovered that, no matter how much you love your kids, sometimes you are powerless to shield them. So you hug your child tight, and you ask his guardian angel to wake you up on the nights he can’t sleep. And miracle of miracles, it works.

null

Last weekend, we celebrated another family milestone: Another ten years have passed since we were reunited under a single roof. That’s not to say that the struggle is over. Both Chris and Sarah are learning to live on their own, have reunited with birth family, and are coming home only sporadically when they need a little extra TLC. I’m not sure which is harder, parenting toddlers or parenting young adults. The struggle for independence is the same … it’s just that the stakes are higher. Much, much higher.

And so, tonight I sit at my computer and jot down these few thoughts to share with you, in case you are going through a parenting struggle yourself. Because no matter where you are on the parenting spectrum, there is enough self-doubt and momentary glee to go around.

In their quest for independence your children will no doubt bewilder you at times with their inability to dress appropriately, hold a job, or return dishes to the sink. You will bite your tongue, hard, in your effort not to take the bait when their music, choice of friends, or personal hygiene makes you wonder just how you could have failed them.

The truth is, you didn’t. One day you will discover—as I recently did—that at some point the skies will clear and the truth will dawn … and Emo Boy will spontaneously give you a hug and say, “You really are a great mom.” And maybe he will go out and find a girl whose sensibilities are curiously like your own … who can get him to clean his room and cut his hair and stop eating fast food.

Click to tweet:
Hang in there, Mama. His angels still have you on speed dial. #catholicmom

Yes, those decades of love reap the sweetest rewards. Hang in there, Mama. His angels still have you on speed dial. Because a mother’s love is measured in decades … and lasts a lifetime.